While audiences powered Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips to more than $100 million at the box office, many missed a riveting Danish thriller released five months before the Tom Hanks drama, which was also based on a true-life situation involving Somali pirates. A masterful slow-burn more than a pulse-pounding action film, A Hijacking shifts perspective between two very different men as they deal with a tumultuous ordeal.
Director Tobias Lindholm (who also penned another film on this list) shoots with a documentary-level realism from the first frame and does not let up. Moving back and forth from a small vessel captured by pirates demanding a $15 million ransom and the cushy offices of the Danish company settling the negotiating price, Lindholm makes subtle but searing reminders about class.
Underneath the veneer of a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller, Lindholm creates a masterful character study of two characters that would be little more than props in a film like Captain Phillips. The first is the ship’s cook, Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) frantically hoping to speak to his family while keeping his captors fed. Then, there is Peter (Søren Malling), the company CEO first driven by profits and then driven mad at his inability to come up with a deal.
Even with minimal action, A Hijacking is tense and excruciating. Lindholm’s film is episodic and he often jumps weeks between some of the negotiations. His spare, unflinching style, inspired by the Dogme 95 filmmakers he has worked with, brings moments of suspense that sting more than any moment from the more action-packed Captain Phillips.
Published: Dec 24, 2013 01:50 pm